Category Archives: Learning Together

Like many digital learning products, Sago Mini provides tools to engage parents in their child’s play experience. However, unlike most similar products, you won’t find a single chart, graph, score, or badge that measures your child’s success.  It’s well-established in the industry that while parents often express an interest in having dashboards that track their child’s learning, very few actually use them. With that in mind, it was with some caution that we began to explore the idea for a…

One could say the only constant during this unprecedented time is change. Childcare centers and schools are adjusting from one day to the next in order to keep the children and families in their communities safe. Another constant, however, is the value of connecting with well-trained children’s library professionals. This is why the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) developed Look to Libraries, a collection of materials intended to assist parents and caregivers during the COVID-19 pandemic. ALSC is…

This is a moment of unprecedented transition for the United States–and for the world more broadly. Reopening schools requires decisions based on incomplete information that must be made in an environment that, at best, would be described as uncertain. But while it might seem unlikely, our oldest form of connection, play, may be one of our best hopes for helping us to navigate this uncertainty. Play has everything to teach us about managing risks, generating new possibilities, dealing with the…

This guest post summarizes a research paper discussing how Latino children collaboratively search the internet with their adult family members to solve family needs. The research for this project began while Jason Yip was a Research Fellow at the Cooney Center in 2013-14, and has just been presented at the ACM Computer Supported Collaborative Work Conference on November 5th. Read the paper here. Searching for online information is not equitable. People search online to find recipes and to plan trips, but also to find…

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop is thrilled to announce the recipients of the Families Learning Across Boundaries (FamLAB) Spark Grants, a program designed to identify, support, and promote innovative approaches to help children and youth ages 3-12 learn more deeply across home, community, and school settings. These four cross-sectoral teams represent a community of researchers, practitioners, and developers who are exploring ways to facilitate learning across boundaries, and these projects were selected for their potential to scale…

In Jackson, Mississippi, researchers visited a family of seven (including a niece and nephew), headed by a stay-at-home mom in her 20s. During the visit, the children sat around the mom as she described their latest learning activities, including 1-on-1 homework time and making “slime.” One activity—planting a seed in the yard in front of their apartment building—garnered a lot of excitement. Here’s how the mom described her family’s experience. “[My son] wanted to know, ‘How did that tree get…

When we first encountered The Unexplainable Disappearance of Mars Patel, I was a little nervous about sharing it with my 7-year-old since the recommended age range is 9-12.  The storyline and music score do make this story the most intense of any that we listen to, but my 7-year-old couldn’t get enough.  He binge-listened to the first half of the season and then was on the edge of his seat waiting for each new installment to come out.  If your child…

Ask Americans where kids are learning the skills they’ll need to participate in the 21st-century workforce, and you’ll likely hear the same answer over and over again: home or school. That’s how most members of the U.S. public respond when asked about where learning takes place, according to the work we’ve done at the FrameWorks Institute, a communications think tank in Washington, DC. And that way of thinking applies to science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, our new report…

Researchers and practitioners have long known that when it comes to digital media for kids, quality is key. But what does it mean for a children’s app to be good or bad? How do specific features and design decisions affect the children who engage with them? If parents want to find high-quality content, what exactly should they be looking for? As part of a team of collaborators at Microsoft Research, the University of Michigan, and the University of Washington, I…

This partial transcript of the App Fairy podcast has been edited for length and clarity. Visit appfairy.org for more information about Tinybop. Carissa Christner: Hello and welcome to the App Fairy podcast! Today we’re going to be talking with the makers of Tinybop. These guys make great apps for school-age kids, a slightly older audience than some of the other app makers that I’ve spoken with. For this episode, we’re going to try something a little bit different. About a year ago I was…